Campaign Rhetoric

With one of its major focuses on both textual and visual rhetoric, English 102 invites you into an in-depth analysis of how text and image work together. In politics, product advertising, education, business, and many other contexts, we see words, pictures, and even sound coming together in campaigns to send messages to their audiences. Your increasingly sharp ability to analyze the rhetorical situations of such campaigns not only contributes to the strength of your communication, but it also helps to strengthen your ability to “read” and critique the world around you. This first project invites you to analyze, evaluate, and create an evidence-based argument about a campaign that interests you.

Steps in the ProcessLike any authentic research project, you’ll begin with inquiry: What do I know? What don’t I know? You’ll use research to get to know some campaign(s) in the media around you: Web, TV, print, radio, mobile phone. Once you’ve done that research, you’ll 1.Choose a campaign: an anti-drug campaign for teens? A local Senator’s campaign for re-election? Starbucks’s line of seasonal coffee drinks? A university’s recruiting campaign? 2.Identify the rhetorical situation: the communicator, audience, message and purpose, context 3.Analyze its rhetorical strategies

4.Use this analysis to make an evaluative argument about this campaign

Your AudienceYour instructor and your peers are part of your audience. But the message you send with this analysis is likely to be of interest to audiences in and out of your field. Thus, it is up to you to decide who you want your audience to be, based on your purpose, message, and context.

Form
Depending on your audience, purpose, message, and context, this composition may take any one or a hybrid of textual forms: e.g., an opinion piece, a letter, a memo, a report, a blog.

Research and Evidence:
Your composition will draw on at least one form of primary research...

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...public relations plan and strategy by assisting in evaluating, examining, planning and performing public relations activities such as gaining publicity, providing entertainment, disseminating information and developing national public information campaigns. Depending on the outcome the organization hopes to achieve and its current circumstances, professionals would seek to apply the most appropriate theory applicable to their situation.
Rhetorical theory
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Rhetorical theory, examines the various methods in which language, signs or symbols are carefully selected and organized by the practitioner to produce persuasive and meaningful messages in order to better the organization’s position in the eyes of its publics. (Toth, 1992) The practitioner uses persuasion to soften hostile opinions during crisis management; reinforce latent opinions and positive attitudes and behaviors as well as maintain such favorable opinions. (Wilcox, Cameron, Reber &amp; Shin, 2011) This approach explores and analyses the effects of those texts on different groups of people to achieve the most ideal results.
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...Eric Fuentes
Eng 102
Instructor Rod Freeman
July 3rd, 2013
According to Aristotle, Effective Rhetoric is “The ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle). He expresses that rhetoric consists of three main forms known as Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Ethos refers to the trustworthiness or credibility of the speaker and their authority. Pathos associates with emotional or motivational appeal by elaborating and conveying words imaginatively to the listeners. Logos utilizes the internal consistency of a speech providing clarity of the facts and statistics used to help support an argument. Effective Rhetoric can be a vital tool for an individual who seeks to magnify their influence onto others. Based on the speeches given by William Wallace in the Movie Brave Heart, Roman General Maximus in Gladiator and Coach Herb in Miracle, it is quite prominent that these individuals exhibit the true effectiveness of Rhetoric by utilizing one or more of the three different elements to persuade, inspire, entertain or inform their target audiences to change or reinforce beliefs, values, habits or actions. William Wallace, who could possibly be considered a Rhetorical mastermind, applies all three elements of Rhetoric flawlessly in his speech just before the battle of Stirling.
Just moments before the battle of Stirling, the Scottish Army begins to retreat from their defiance...

...A well-planned public relations campaign is an integral part of every company’s success. There are a variety of means with which a company may choose to execute their public relations campaigns and efforts. However for the sake of this essay, we will focus on elaborating the effectiveness and significance of rhetorical theory as a main point. Rhetorical theory is a fundamental part of public relations and a key aspect of many public relation campaigns, which we will further discuss.
Rhetorical theory is one of the communications techniques used in public relations by persuading the public to a particular point of view. Heath defines rhetoric as the art of persuasion. Likewise Elwood defines rhetoric as “the communicative means that citizens use to lend significance to themselves and to extend that significance to others,” claiming that public relations itself is a rhetorical practice.
Sproul (1988) has his own explanation and description of the “new managerial rhetoric.” Sproul explains that historically, rhetoric has been a tool focused on more greatly, but not exclusively on reaching the mass audience through media as opposed to being aimed at a single individual.
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...condemns, in order to be accommodating to themselves and to avoid ridicule. Truth becomes less and less important, and more of a convenient tool that can be used to help the individual. This idea is rampant in today’s culture, but dates back much further. The Sophists of ancient Greece were early examples of the loss of the importance of truth and the rise of empty rhetoric.
These Sophists were teachers and public figures who were skilled in the art of persuasion. They originated from those who practiced oral traditions such as poets and public speakers. When the Greek democracy was formed, citizens stepped up to snatch the political power. Naturally, as seen today, those skilled in public speaking and who could make the most promises effectively and persuasively attained and held this power. Those who had the education, the sophists and their pupils, become the holders of all the power. This created a need for sophists and those who could afford had their sons educated by the orators.
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To uphold the value of truth, however, it needs a definition and groundwork for its importance. According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, Truth is “the state of being the case; the body of real things, events, and facts”. Within the context of the sophists this definition proves valid, because this is the type of...

...﻿ “We can all benefit from learning to influence, persuade, negotiate, train and sell to others in a variety of contexts from direct selling to clients to coaching, team building, appraising, motivating and leading” (Atkinson, 2012). Rhetoric is a tool that we can use throughout our careers and in our daily lives. I will be defining rhetoric, listing the benefits of persuasion, the five stages of the persuasion process, and how I feel persuasion will help me in my profession.
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Modes of persuasion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The modes of persuasion are devices in rhetoric that classify the speaker's appeal to the audience. They are: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Aristotle's On Rhetoric describes the modes of persuasion thus:
Persuasion is clearly a sort of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. [...] Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. [...] Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. [...] Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in...

...The Power of Rhetoric
Caesar was brutally murdered, and now Brutus and Antony present their funeral speeches with the purpose to make people believe in their own views on this murder. The central theme of Act 3, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is the power of rhetoric. From this scene we are able to see the power that words can have—how they can awake emotions, manipulate opinions, and motivate actions. Through the essay I will be comparing Antony and Brutus speeches and their effect on the society using Aristotle’s postulated three argumentative appeals: logical, emotional and ethical. Powerful and superior rhetoric has a balance of all of three aspects. In contrast to Brutus, Antony presents a superb and more rhetorically powerful funeral oration because he is able to apply logical, emotional and ethical appeals in the perfectly balanced way. In comparison to Antony, Brutus bases his speech not on logical facts but on his reputation, manipulating with the fact that he is an honorable man. In terms of emotions, Brutus uses only pity when Antony employs the use of nostalgia and pity therefore generates a deeper emotional connection with the audience. Finally, Antony presents delightful ethical appeal whereas Brutus uses it very poorly.
Antony demonstrates highly effective use of logical appeal by making each of his points supported with facts, personal experience, and observations to prove Julius Caesar was...